a broken amulet

O has this pink necklace she calls her amulet because there’s a clear “diamond” heart in the center. It’s made of plastic beads and clear elastic string. She has a habit of pulling on the necklace, and I’ve warned her more than once that if she keeps doing that it might break.

This afternoon her necklace broke, and the beads flew everywhere.

She burst out crying and I was about to say, Seeee?

But I bit my tongue and said, Oh no, let’s find all the beads and make it again.

She quickly stopped crying and got on her hands and knees to pick up the beads. Sitting on the kitchen floor, I started stringing the pink beads onto one side as she worked on the other side. We both dropped the string a couple times, and the beads spilled again.

She held out the heart amulet and said, Oh no, we have to put this in the middle!

You’re right, I said feeling quite dumb. Now we had to start all over again.

Then I realized this whole time she had been alternating tiny clear beads with the bigger round pink ones while I was just mindlessly stringing the pink ones together. I had to undo all my work then watched her, bemused, as her little hands busily worked with accuracy and she chatted about how small the beads were and how we needed to find more little ones so that Lando wouldn’t eat them. Then she created a system where I strung the small ones and she did the pink ones as I secured the string.

We finally finished, and I made ten knots before taping the ends with pink washi tape. She apologized for breaking the necklace and thanked me for helping her. I gave her a hug and told her we did good. I was proud of how she handled the problem with such a calm and sound mind; it was lovely to see.